Sunday, September 27, 2009

a marriage of two parts


It usually comes together at night, my best ideas. I had time to write this all day, but how to bring together the day's medical emergency and a new table delivered to the shop late Friday? I just couldn't do it, all afternoon in the ER. I'm tired. I started in on the Sunday New York Times, reading about design and creative people. Then it hit me: that table, my husband's emergency. The gestalt: good marriages of any two things necessarily endure rough spots. Wow this is the good idea? Hang on. When it comes to design projects, Rick, my husband and I work well together. I had this great old 1940's Detroit sign advertising Christmas trees for $1 and I wanted a table made out of it. We agreed it needed to be simple but the thing was big and getting the scale and leg shape right took a few meetings. You are looking at the picture and saying huh? Yeah I know, four legs, we need meetings? Ok so we do a lot of things on the fly: I ask his opinion, ignore it, he gets irritated and forgets what I said, we start all over two weeks later, I've changed my mind, nothing is drawn still, he sorta gets what I want, weeks goes by I forget about the whole project and then suddenly it shows up in my store. I love it. This is evidence of working well? This goes for well in my book, I've done this marriage thing before ok? Yeah, I know four legs, a sign, whatever...The deal is I never get over how great I feel when I see that idea realized. I fall in love with the man, that genius, all over again. So maybe this isn't the design he would show you as evidence of his talent. But that sign was face down in the dirt. Now look at it. Speaking of in the dirt. About that emergency. Rick is allergic to bees, the deadly kind of allergic. The bees are everywhere this time of year. We had a false alarm 3 weeks ago at the country cottage 20 miles from the hospital. He decides to plant bushes amongst the wild flowers today, same country cottage. That genius. So there I am rushing to the fire station, again. But this time he's got 4 bee stings and gripping the epi pin and not yelling at me to go faster. He's looking white, I dial 911. The emergency team shows up...big beefy men in t-shirts smelling of fried bacon. They remember him from last time, the gardening enthusiast from the city. There's no mistaking the dirty wellingtons, smelling of dog shit. He's all layed out on the sidewalk. I get to explain how he can't help himself, he's on the beautification committee. Would have no clue about the sports teams on their t-shirts... What's not to love? It's good enough for me. Make that perfect.

1 comment:

Lee said...

Glad to know Rick's brush with death and professional sport team paraphernalia was brief and nothing lasting.